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GREATER LONDON INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY

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Notes and news — October 1995

A summer of GLIAS walks

Another series of public walks was held over the summer with good attendances inspite of the torrential downpour for Dave Perrett's South Bank walk. Bill Firth started the the season with a walk fron Victoria Station (with appologies for the differences over the Wilton Road Entrance!) to Parliament Square through a varied area of residential and commercial development over older industrial sites.

Dave Perrett followed with a walk in the rain to look at the area from Westminster Bridge to, effectively, The Founders Arms at Bankside where the coupe of dozen brave souls were refreshed. Mary Mills and Dave had swapped dates to allow Mary's Woolwich walk to co-incide with the Crossness Open Day and Mary kept the good weather. Some sixty walkers were welcomed by the Deputy Mayor of Greenwich and covered both sides of the Thames with a ferry trip between.

The good weather continued for Charles Norrie's walk along the Regents Canal east from Camden with another good turnout of over fifty. The weather for Sue Hayton's walk round Clerkenwell and up to Islington Green looked like being a repeat of Dave's but it cleared up with ten minutes to go and over sixty people enjoyed the walk.

The Committee hopes to run another series next year so any members with thoughts about leading a walk or just where to go please get in touch. We have a megaphone and will travel!

Open House weekend

Once again the RIBA in conjuction with some London Boroughs organised the opening of many buildings in the capital. The architecture on show ranged from the ornate of all periods to the prosaic with an opportunity to visit Channel 4's new building, the Old Mortuary at Rotherhithe and the Catacombs at Brompton Cemetery (no coffin lifts just steps).

The thirties were represented by the Finsbury and Peckham Health Centres and the MWB Laboratory block at New River Head. The MWB site also included the Oak Room from the oiginal New River Company building, the round house of the windmill and the beam engine house. We were fortunate to be given copies of the listings in advance and could plan our route from burial grounds to the Custom House. Those who couldn't make it this year watch out in 1996.

John Saxby — signal engineer

Bob Carr in his piece on Melton Mowbray pies (GLIAS Newsletter August 1995) mentions the association of Saxby's with signals. However, it does not seem that the Saxby Brothers of Melton Mowbray pie fane have anything in common with John Saxby, the inventor of signal interlocking, except a surname.

John Saxby was born in Brighton in 1821. At 13 he became a carpenter's apprentice and later was employed by the LB&SCR in that trade. He became interested in safety on the railways following a number of accidents and in 1856 patented a system for the interlocking of points and signals. This was first installed at Bricklayers Arms which had earlier been the scene of an accident which interlocking would have prevented.

In 1861 Saxby began a business of his own for the manufacture of signal apparatus at Haywards Heath. In 1862 he formed a partnership with J S Farmer, a LB&SCR signal engineer, and in 1863 they opened a factory at Kilburn, London NW6. In 1875 Saxby Farmer produced a mechanical continuous brake.

The firm was acquired by the Consolidated Signal Company in 1901 and the business, still using the Saxby & Farmer name, was transferred to Chippenham. This became part of the Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company in 1920 and is now part of the Hawker Siddeley Group. Bill Firth

Zebo

(GLIAS Newsletter August 1995)

Just as our Editor wrote, 'Zebo' was used for black-leading fire grates and black iron Kitchener stoves'. Ah me, that takes me back to Monday mornings (summer only) as a child. The scullery full of steam and the smell of hot soapy water filling the kitchen where I had my house chore to perform. Wipe the top of the Kitchener stove to remove any dust and then apply Zebo' with a hand brush, flue first, then the top of the stove. Then with a slightly softer brush with a curved handle that went, over the back, buff all the surfaces until you could almost see your face in them. Continue on the stove front, starting with the boiler, working across the oven door and finishing with the fire-grate and trivet. When all these surfaces were shining 'black as Newgate's knocker' it was bright-work time. A small piece of fine emery cloth was used to bring all the bright-work - damper handle, hob-ridge, oven handle and poker handle - to a white shine, the equal of regimental silver. While I was performing this task a voice from the scullery would implore me to 'Put the Zebo on the stove, NOT on yourself, please!' And when I had finished the two compartment tray with central handle containing 'Zebo' brushes, rag and emery, had to be replaced on the shelf next to the bar of 'Sunlight' soap, the 'Reckitts Paris Blue' (Size A) and the 'Robinson's' starch. What will our grand-children have to look back on? There is not a lot one can do with a self-contained central heating system! 'Tosher'

Foxtrot U475

I met with a friend of mine the other day and his first words to me were : 'Hello Pete. How are you? I've just painted a Russian submarine'. Now this is not a surprising greeting from Richie Slater. He once called across the road, inviting me to the launching of the Titanic at a Dartford swimming pool, but that's another story. Richie is an artist and among his achievements are a painting of the Thames Barrier and a portrait of David Kirkaldy (1820-1897) which hangs in the Kirkaldy Testing Museum, Southwark.

The shop at the Thames Barrier were so impressed with his work that they ordered a large quantity of postcard prints of Richie's painting of the Barrier, and have re-orderd several times. Richie, fascinated with 'Foxtrot U475' (GLIAS Newsletter August 1995) made a painting of the sub and has just fulfilled an order for 5,000 postcard prints of the same. So if you are visiting 'U475' look out for Richie's postcards. Peter Skilton

Early gas works

As this is an industrial archaeology publication, perhaps I should look at some sites! Early gas works fans should go north from Liverpool Street station to Hearn Street and look at the taxi depot on the eastern corner of Hearn and Worship Streets. The present occupants are friendly enough and will, if you are lucky, invite you into their canteen. Cynical taxi drivers will show no surprise when you tell them it is the site of one of the earliest gas works ever built. If you look around you can see many, very interesting signs of the coal depot which previously occupied the site. I might stick my neck out and say that there is a possibility that parts of the perimeter wall could be that of the old gas works - although the only picture shows that being demolished but the gate posts seem to be in the same place.

One of the interesting things about this site is its location. It was built to supply gas to the Liberty of Norton Folgate, just north of Bishopsgate. In 1811 and the very first years of the Gas Light and Coke Company, the Court of Governors worked very hard to get their first local authority lighting contract. At Norton Folgate one of the GLCC Governors had influence over 'one of Trustees'. The Trustees (vestrymen) were interested in the constant issues of lower rates and cutting crime and so this tiny area became the first to have its own public supply gas works.

The site was leased from two coal merchants - James Weston and Thomas White, and the works was designed and begun by Frederick Christian Accum. He was a German chemist who made a living in London lecturing on the virtues of gas lighting. Faced with his first practical chance of implementation, he fudged it and the works was finished by Samuel Clegg.

This is not the place to give a lot of detail on the works itself - what became known as 'Curtain Road Works' had an interesting history as one of the earliest gas works in the world. As time went by it became less and less important, always on the brink of being closed. In 1865 the new North London Railway lines into Broad Street passed down the east side of the works, and a complicated agreement was entered into with the railway whereby coal, sidings would be built into the site and the railway would deliver 'coal and other materials from Poplar Dock at ½d. per ton: Other arrangements concerned the use of Gas Light and Coke Co gas for lighting in North London railway stations and works and a promise that they would try and persuade LNWR to do so too.

Within six years the gas company had decided to close the works. A print of it under demolition is sometimes reproduced with the claim that this was to enable the new Great Eastern Railway terminus to be built. However, the site shown in the print is west of the existing North London Railway, whereas the Great Eastern lines are to the east. Plans in the Greater London Record Office make it clear that demolition was actually carried out for the widening of the North London Railway. It is possible to stand in Hearn Street at the same angle from which the print was drawn and see where the railway lines have been widened and the line of the wall changed. A large gasholder stood at the eastern end of the site now partly covered by the railway. There is no apparent sign of this within the site itself.

In the late 1870s the site returned to its previous use of a coal yard and is shown as that on subsequent maps. Remains of a coal delivery system from the railway are still there and have been examined by GLIAS in the past. The Future fate of the railway viaduct is not clear but it will presumably be demolished as part of the East London Line Extension. Detailed investigation might still throw up clues to the past of this interesting old site and might become clearer when and if building work commences.

Sources:

E G Stewart, A Historical Index of Gasworks, Nibas 1758;
Sterling Everard, The History of the Gas Light and Coke Company 1812-1949, Benn Bros, London, 1949;
Malcolm Millichip, Gas Light and Steam, British Gas, 1994;
Barrie Trinder, The Making of the Industrial Landscape, Dent, 1982 (print reproduced fig.67);
NTGas Collection, Greater London Record Office.

There is some biographical information on Accum. (contact me for details). Mary Mills

W F R Stanley (1829-1909) and South Norwood

The son of a mechanical engineer, inventor and builder William Stanley was born in Buntingford, Hertfordshire, and although receiving rather a limited formal education did attend classes in technical drawing at what we would now call Birkbeck College. In 1849 he worked with his father at an engineering works in Whitechapel. Here William made improvements to the design of the tricycle and by 1854 was in his own business at 3 Great Turnstile, Holborn, as a worker in metal and ivory and a scientific instrument maker.

His 'Panoptic Stereoscope' introduced in 1855 proved profitable and the business expanded with the addition of another shop at Holborn Bars. At the 1862 International Exhibition he was awarded a medal for his straight line dividing engine. This award brought him considerable extra business and laid the foundations for later large-scale business success. He commenced work as an author and in 1866 published 'A Descriptive Treatise of Mathematical Drawing Instruments' which became the standard work on the subject reaching a seventh edition in 1900. Further branches of the business were opened at Lincoln's Inn, London Bridge and Norwood and the firm became W F Stanley and Co in 1900 with a capital of £120,000.

William Stanley made substantial improvements to the theodolite and other surveying instruments and his numerous inventions included a meteorometer patented in 1867 which recorded simultaneously wind direction and pressure, temperature, humidity and rainfall. There was also an integrating anemometer (1883), a coin in the slot machine (one of the first of its kind) for automatically measuring people's height (1886) and a spirometer for determining lung capacity (1887). He had a considerable interest in photography and made improvements to camera lenses.

As well as his many scientific interests Mr Stanley involved himself in painting, wood carving, architecture, music and drama and lectured widely. He composed part songs and had some of his oil paintings exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery. He designed his own house, Cumberlow, in South Norwood to which he retired in later life. As an author he was quite prolific and amongst his works might be mentioned 'Photography Made Easy' (1872), 'Stanley's Pretty Figure Book Arithmetic' (1875), 'Experimental Researches into the Properties and Motions of Fluids' (1881), 'Surveying and Levelling Instruments, theoretically and practically described' (1890), and 'Joe Smith and his Waxworks' (1896).

In Croydon and Norwood he took a prominent part in public life and many local hospitals, technical schools and other charities benefited from his generous philanthropy. Near the bottom of South Norwood Hill close to Norwood Junction railway station you can still admire the excellent Stanley Halls designed and paid for by William Stanley himself and first opened to the public on 2 February 1903 at a cost of £13,000 (2 February was Mr Stanley's birthday). At first there was a Hall and Art Gallery but a clock tower and another hall were added in 1904. In 1907 adjacent to the north the Stanley Technical School was opened and became an immediate success. Stanley later presented the buildings to the public with an endowment to the value of £50,000.

A cast-iron clock tower was erected in South Norwood at the junction of Station Road and the High Street in 1907 to mark the golden wedding anniversary of Mr and Mrs Stanley and this is still in place. The clock tower was financed by local public subscription as a tribute to Mr Stanley's generously.

The Stanley Halls continue in use for a variety of purposes now administered by the local authority and a blue plaque on the facade records brief details of William Ford Robinson Stanley. These interesting and singular Edwardian buildings deserve to be better known. In recent years theft and vandalism have taken their toll but there is still much to be seen. The busts of Shakespeare, Faraday and Co over the entrance to the main hall have been stolen (GLIAS Newsletter February 1980) and Mr Stanley's bust over the door to the former Art Gallery is no longer there. Beside the door a plaque even now advertises that admission to the Art Gallery is free. No doubt some of Mr Stanley's paintings once hung there.

Inside the main hall grills for the warm air ventilating system devised by Mr Stanley can still be seen and the heating boilers are still in the basement. Throughout the buildings the interior detailing and woodwork is excellent and there are some very nice tiles. Over the proscenium arch in the main hall an inspiring slogan is emblazoned which in several ways expresses ideals Mr Stanley would one feels sure like to be remembered by. Bob Carr

Lighten our darkness with radio

The invention (or perhaps re-invention) of clockwork radio by Mr Trevor Baylis of Eel Pie Island, Twickenham, is a very obvious and long overdue development for the third world where the frequent need to purchase batteries means that radio sets are not listened to as much as they might be. The pressing need to transmit health information brought home to Mr Baylis the desirability of being independent of batteries when you have no mains electricity.

Clockwork wireless sets are now being manufactured in South Africa and are quite sophisticated products with fashionably styled black cabinets and multiple waveband reception. A minute's winding gives more than half an hour's operation and in a village with communal listening there should be no shortage of volunteers to rewind the set if it runs down at a crucial point of the broadcast. Bob Carr

Second garden city is 75

This year the second Garden City (GLIAS Newsletter August 1995), at Welwyn in Hertfordshire, celebrates its 75th anniversary. Although London is generally considered to end at roughly the M25 the process of forming new satellite towns in the home counties has been going on for a considerable time and shortly after the second World War there was a veritable New Town Mania when Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage and Hatfield were added to Hertfordshire alone (which already had two New Towns). The process of rehousing 'surplus' London people away from the capital has more recently included transportation as far afield as Peterborough and King's Lynn. Perhaps now the fashion for New Towns is abating and it is being realised that rather than combining the advantages of Town and Country one can end up with the worst features of both. At least in Welwyn there is something of an urban feel about the town centre.

In 1919 Mr Ebenezer Howard (as he then was) bought at an auction several farms in Hertfordshire on either side of the Great Northern Railway main line from London to York and in 1920 Welwyn Garden City Ltd was set up. Louis de Soissons was appointed as architect/planner and presented his famous 'master plan' on 11 June the same year. The layout of the town centre is peculiarly characteristic of Welwyn Garden City and is one of its most successful features with the spacious Howardsgate and Parkway intersecting at right angles, each featuring a central garden throughout their length. Louis de Soissons stayed with Welwyn Garden City until his death in 1962 and designed much of the new town.

For industrial archaeologists perhaps the pièce de résistance of Welwyn is the listed Shredded Wheat Factory by de Soissons where construction work started in 1925. This is a prominent landmark close to the railway station with a strong North American feel to it. The Shredded Wheat Company of Canada was persuaded to build its European factory here and it became almost a symbol of the new Garden City. It is still in production and walking about the town one's nostrils are often assailed by the delicious aroma of baking shredded wheat.

It was originally intended to create a self-contained community with an industrial area providing jobs in manufacturing industry. This industrial area was to border the main line railway and the branch line to Hertford (now closed). Now with Britain scarcely a manufacturing country at all many residents of Welwyn Garden City make use of the convenient train service to London and commute to work in the City. At least people still eat shredded wheat and will probably continue to do so. Bob Carr

William Haywood — a forgotten city engineer

William Haywood (1821-94) was a very able engineer who, in this century, has not received the attention he deserves although he played an important part in public works in the shaping of the City of London. Haywood's work included a scheme for main drainage of London, the Holborn Valley Viaduct and the driving of a number of new streets through the City. He has been perhaps rather overshadowed by his famous contemporaries, the Metropolitan Board of Works engineer, Joseph Bazalgette (1519-91, and by the great public health reformer John Simon (1916-1904), the first Medical Officer of the City of London. With both these men, Haywood clearly had a productive and friendly working relationship. He was born in 1821 and in 1846 after a period practising as an. architect, took up an appointment as assistant engineer with the Commissioners of Sewers of the City Corporation. The following year he became their Architect and Surveyor (later Engineer), a post held for 48 years.

The City in the mid-19th century was vastly different from today. It was very densely populated - 129,128 in the 1851 census (but fell rapidly to 38,320 in 1391, and 23,673 in 1911). It was also insanitary and disease-ridden - a state not necessarily acknowledged by the Corporation. A Lord Mayor could boast in 1847 'there could be no improvement in the sanitary condition of the City - it was perfect!' In contrast, Simon's biographer's view was that 'men of humanity and social concern regarded the City government with overt disgust and contempt. Although the latter comment more accurately represented the general opinion of the City Corporation, yet its performance in terms of works for the improvement of public health was markedly better than that of many other large towns. For example, sewer construction had started although hardly carried out with despatch. Although the City had begun to build man-entry size sewers of 5 by 3 feet in the late 18th century yet by 1832 they had managed less than 10 miles. Between 1832 and 1843, under the more energetic but haphazardly- organised part-time Surveyor, Richard Kelsey, added 13½ miles. Haywood put things on a sounder footing and by 1848, 44 miles existed with not much main sewer remaining to be built although there was still much to be done in connecting premises to the network and getting rid of the foul cess-pits which riddled the City sub-soil.

By Haywood's time, the title 'Commissioner of Sewers' was misleading in two respects. Originally Commissioners had been responsible for drainage of surface water and maintenance of the channels. During the nineteenth century the channels became increasingly employed to carry foul sewage because cesspools were phased out by law - an action which greatly improved public health. The penalty was that foul sewage was diverted into the Thames, having a disastrous impact upon the river quality. The original remit of the Commissioners had been extended well beyond sewerage, as from 1771 they were required to carry out many other functions which would be undertaken by a present-day local authority - street lighting, paving, street cleansing, etc.

In 1848, the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers was established; they were to be responsible for the whole of the metropolis with the inevitable exception of the City, for the City fathers' view of any legislation was 'Do what you like, but leave the City alone'. Fortunately for London, the engineers for the City and the Metropolitan Commissioners saw that London's infrastructure needed metropolis-wide planning. In 1850, Haywood, in conjunction with Frank Forster, the engineer to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, devised a scheme for intercepting and diverting sewage from the districts on the north side of the Thames. They Haywood/Forster scheme was not proceeded with because of opposition of the 'defenders of the filth'. Forster's early death in 1852 was in fact attributed to the hostility to this scheme. In 1854, Haywood was closely associated with Joseph Bazalgette in further development of these earlier proposals, which scheme was later executed as the Northern Outfall Sewer under Bazalgette by the Metropolitan Board of Works. (Bazalgette in his 1865 'Civil's' paper never claimed originality for London's Main Drainage, constructed under his leadership, and he generously acknowledged that the scheme was made up of ingredients from other sources.)

The one work above all others which Haywood regarded with justifiable pride was the Holborn Valley Viaduct - eight days before he died he wrote in a letter to the Lord Mayor that the Viaduct was a work 'which small as it may be, is a historic work'.

There had been various proposals from 1766 for crossing the Fleet valley on the level, because of the extreme difficulty horse-drawn traffic encountered on the steep gradients either side of the valley. At last, in 1862, the City Corporation acted and a design competition was held in which there were some 80 entries.

Haywood won with a design submitted anonymously, but unfortunately he was also on the adjudicating committee. This was a recipe for trouble, and Frank Marrable, the superintending architect of the Metropolitan Board of Works, claimed his entry had been hi-jacked by Haywood, a claim supported by 'The Builder' at the time. Even Harold Clunn in his well-known book of 1932 The Face of London' stated the design was Marrable's. However, would Haywood at the end of his life have regarded the works with pride if he had earlier hi-jacked the design? Marrable also appears to have been a particularly difficult person - Owen described him as 'a man whose sense of honour was a bit elastic' ! The Viaduct was a major construction, the recently-strengthened cast iron bridge being only part, albeit the most visible part, of the work, the rest being submerged in buildings; the total length of the viaduct is nearly a quarter of a mile.

Over 4,000 houses were demolished (like many London road improvements, slum clearance was also a covert, if not an overt motive, without overmuch concern for the future of the people displaced), and the total cost was £2.5M. The government contributed to the cost, as in 1861 it had agreed to earmark the proceeds from the coal duty to public improvements.

The structure of the viaduct was 'a perfect honeycomb work of arches; there are arches for the subways, arches for the sewer, arches for the cellars of the houses on either side, and arches again below the arches, the approaches of which are on the low level of Farringdon Street'. Another commentator saw the Viaduct as 'the compressed energies of London life.a species of elongated honeycomb..an aqueduct, a viaduct, a gas tube, a line of telegraph, a sewer and a pneumatic railway'. However, Haywood would not permit the Pneumatic Despatch Co.'s parcels tube (GLIAS Newsletter February 1994) to be placed within the viaduct, and it had to dive down into the valley. The low point created acted as a collection point for water - with interesting results for the occasional person who ventured through the tube in one of the cars. Haywood's new City of London Cemetery came in useful for the re-interring of some 11 to 12,000 bodies removed from the churchyard of St Sepulchre's. The Viaduct was formally opened by Queen Victoria on 6th November 1869.

While the Viaduct was still being built, Haywood submitted a report on traffic improvements in the City - one point he made was that the time saved in not having to negotiate the steep-sided valley would be lost elsewhere especially by congestion in Newgate Street. The moral he drew from this was the 'facility of locomotion stimulates traffic of itself' a moral recently re-discovered! He believed that piecemeal road programmes were self-defeating and that an overall strategy of road improvement was needed in London. His highway engineering activities also included aspects which might be thought of as recent innovations for he undertook surveys of traffic flows, and attempted to calculate precisely the cost to the community of traffic jams.

Haywood's obituary comments that his improvement works affected about half of the City streets. He also took considerable interest in the nature of the road surface and by systematic testing developed a specification for stone setts; he found that very hard stone rapidly became polished by the passage of traffic, and provided a poor foothold for horses. In contrast, more friable granites wore such as to maintain a good surface. He introduced the use of asphalt for road surfacing, first in Threadneedle Street in 1869 followed the next year by Cheapside and Poultry.

He provided a comprehensive network of fire hydrants throughout the City; and constructed a destructor to incinerate street refuse.

Haywood was also responsible for the design and layout of the City of London Cemetery at Manor Park in 1853 - an important contribution to the City's health, as its overcrowded cemeteries were disgusting places which led to the 'slaughter of the living by the dead'.

Although his City appointment was full-time, Haywood was able to maintain his own busy consultancy practice, especially for overseas public works and he was much honoured by foreign governments.

Jephson's classic book of 1907 The Sanitary Evolution of London' names Medical Officers of Health etc. by the dozen, but neither Haywood nor even Bazalgette, nor any other engineer, gets a mention, yet they designed and constructed the physical framework which provided the means to transform London's health!

Recent sources:

D. Owen, (1982) 'The Government of London';
R. Lambert, (1963) 'Sir John Simon';
J. Winter, (1994), 'London's Teeming Streets'

Don Clow

Letters to the editor

  • From Paul Phillips:
    London Transport closed the Holborn to Aldwych branch line of the Piccadilly Line and the Epping to Ongar Line of the Central on Friday 30 September 1994. London Transport are required to keep the track and other works for three years in case anyone wants to buy it. There is a preservation group with premises and rolling stock at Ongar.
    Further information from Les Mills, 75 High Road, North Weald, Essex CM16 6HW. Tel: 0181 514 8700

    Work continues at the Southall Railway Centre with steaming dates on 28-29 October, 25-26 November, 2-3, 9-10, 16-17 December. Santa Steamings are on 2-3, 9-10, 16-17 December (Bridge Road entrance via the footbridge linking Merrick Road and Park Avenue, Southall railway station). The centre is open other weekends until 16-17 December, 11am to 5pm.
    Further information from GWR Preservation Group, Southall Railway Centre, Southall, Middlesex UB2 4PL. Web: www.gwrpg.co.uk Tel: (24 hour events information) 0181 574 8100. General enquiries on 0181 574 1529

    In the field of main line railways the Royal Mail have built a very large depot at Stonebridge Park (the largest open span building in Europe) to handle all London TPOs (Travelling Post Offices), which will handle all mail travelling by rail from and to London, which means that all TPOs will no longer be seen at Paddington, Euston and other main line stations.

  • From Don Hayes:
    You'll be glad to know that your appeal from Crossness for lavatorial memorabilia appeared in 'Plumbing', the widely read journal of the Institute of Plumbing.

    Congrats on another excellent issue.

  • And finally, Gordon Thomerson has written:
    Re: GLIAS Newsletter August 1995.

    My wife and I spent Christmas 1994 with friends in Nottingham. For breakfast on Christmas morning we were given pork pie. On remarking about the unusual fayre, we were told by our hosts that everyone in Nottingham has pork pie for Christmas breakfast; it is traditional.

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    • © GLIAS, 1995